Lost Paradise (17 page)

“Dark brown, black, and tan,” Lash
hissed.

The saleswoman looked at him nervously. “Come
on back, please.”

“You said Dev didn’t like those colors,” I
said quietly, as we followed her to the back of the store.

“I
like those colors,” Lash hissed
meaningfully.

I gave him a look. He shot me a grin, then
inclined his head, telling me to get to it.

The saleswoman showed me where my requested
items were. I began to look through them, Lash hovering over
me.

“Don’t hover,” I said finally.

“What should I do?” he hissed. “There are no
men’s clothes here, Sar. I feel ill at ease.”

I gave him an irritated look, then realized
he was serious. “You can sit in that chair there, or you can go and
look around. If you see something you think Devlin would like me
in, get one for me to try it on. I wear a size medium, or a ten.”
Lately I was bigger than that, but rationalized Lash wasn’t likely
to choose the latter option I’d proposed, anyway.

To my surprise, Lash nodded, and walked off,
looking around. After looking for gray and black in vain, I quickly
grabbed some long-sleeved T’s in red, pink, white, green, and then
paused, considering dark brown. Rationalizing that it would look
good on me, I got one of those, too, grabbed some jeans in my size,
and then brought all of them up to the counter. “Please hold these
under the name Sar,” I said, handing them to the clerk, then went
to look around the rest of the store.

Most of the clothes here were too dressy for
my normal day-to-day life. Yet I was tempted to buy something
special for a surprise. Devlin had seen me in jeans, lingerie, and
black-tie eveningwear, but nothing else. By what was in his closet,
a few sequins on something velvet would be right up his alley.

After looking at several items, I reluctantly
decided not to indulge. Devlin never took me anywhere but Davy’s.
That was no place for a fancy dress, and getting dressed up to stay
home was also not my style. Letting the skirt of the velvet dress
go, I turned and began looking for Lash.

He was looking at some of the leather suede
jackets. “Try on this,” he hissed as I walked up, handing me a long
suede duster in a tan color.

It was beautiful. The pieces of soft leather
were stitched together in a patchwork pattern; it was elegant and
delicate, yet still rugged. Maybe this coat was the answer to my
desire for something special for an outfit. I couldn’t wear a dress
to Davy’s, but I could wear this and not feel overdressed. The only
problem was that none of the tops I’d chosen would look good with
this except the dark brown one.

I went to the counter and asked for the dark
brown top, and a pair of the jeans. “I need to try this on as an
outfit.” The woman nodded, smiling, handed me the clothes, and took
me to a dressing room.

I began undressing. As I pulled my sweater
over my head, my hand brushed my collar, and it came undone,
falling with a clink to the floor.

“Good going, Sar.” I’d have to be more
careful. If I did that near a sewer grate, I’d be shit out of luck.
I picked it up, and refastened it, the links sliding together with
a soft clinking sound. Quickly, I slipped on the jeans top and
duster.

“Sar?” Lash hissed from the other side of the
door. “How does it look?”

I opened the door, and came out. “I think it
looks good. What do you think?”

“It does,” he hissed appreciatively. “Dev
might not have told you he liked the color, but he will like how
the clothing fits you.”

“You’re sure?” I said, going over to look
again in the mirror. “I almost never wear brown.”

“I’m sure,” he hissed, then turned to
leave.

“Where are you going?” I called curiously
after him.

“Outside,” he hissed back without stopping,
“before I raise your personal demon here in the store.”

Stifling a smile, I went back in the dressing
room, then looked at myself again. He was right, they looked great,
so great I was tempted to wear them home. Not only did I like how I
looked, I liked how the suede coat made me feel. Reluctantly I took
them off, telling myself it wasn’t nice to tease snakes, even if
once in a while they did deserve it.

As I took the clothes off, my choker fell off
again. Irritated, I stuck it in my purse, determined to ask Devlin
about it that night. I didn’t want to lose the damned thing. After
putting on my old clothes, I went out to the register where Lash
was paying the bill.

As we walked to the Hummer, Lash stopped,
staring at me. “Why are you not wearing your choker?” he hissed
angrily.

“It fell off twice in there when I was
getting the clothes on and off,” I said in exasperation. “I was
afraid I’d lose it if I put it on again.”

“Put it on now, Sar,” he hissed. “I’ll keep
an eye on it. You won’t lose it.”

Unwilling to argue, I took the choker back
out and put it on. I waited a second after, sure it was going to
fall off, but nothing happened.

“Do you want to get dinner while we are out?”
he said, looking at the dashboard clock. “It’s about eight.”

“When will Dev be home?” I asked.

“Not until eleven at least,” Lash hissed in
reply. “He has a lot to do this week. He’d put off some of his
meetings because you are staying with him, but there are some he
said he just had to attend.”

His anger was back, laced with bitterness. It
was on the tip of my tongue to ask him what he was annoyed about.
But we were getting along well, and I didn’t want to ruin it. “Are
you hungry?”

“Sar, I only eat raw meat and blood,” Lash
hissed softly, staring at the dash. “I can eat it warm like when
you made me breakfast, but that’s all. My hunger is
irrelevant.”

This had to be one of the side effects of the
potion he took as well. “How about raw fish?” I offered.

Lash looked at me strangely. “Raw fish?”

“Sushi,” I said, giving him a look. “Can you
eat sushi? Rice and meat should be easily digestible.”

Lash pondered that for a second. “Maybe,” he
hissed finally. “I never tried to. Where do they sell it?”

“Take me to the superstore in the plaza down
the road,” I said firmly. “You can try it. If you like it, there’s
a restaurant nearby we can go to for dinner.”

Lash drove me to the local superstore, then
followed me in as I grabbed a hand basket. “They have tuna, crab,
salmon, eel, and other things,” I said, showing him the display
case “What looks good to you?”

Lash crouched down near the display and
flicked out his tongue, scenting the air. I grabbed some eel for
myself, and some vegetables, too, sticking them in the hand
basket.

This was going to be a treat. I hadn’t had
sushi since I’d first been married years ago. It suddenly struck me
as odd that I was sharing this moment with Lash, of all people. But
why not? If it made the difference between him being hungry and me
having a dinner partner, that was all right. Besides, I’d get some
for Theo to try, too. He might like it, though I’d never seen him
express much of an interest in fish, other than fried haddock.

I grabbed a small bottle of tamari sauce,
then looked down at Lash still crouched down, deliberating. I put
my selections in the basket, then hunkered down beside him. “Sooner
or later, you are going to have to make a decision,” I said with a
smile.

“It all smells good,” he said finally. “But I
may not be able to eat it.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. He flinched,
looking back at me in surprise.

“Do you want me to just get you some raw fish
from the fish display in the back?” I asked gently. “I don’t want
you to get sick the way Danial does when he has to have wine. You
don’t have to do this if you don’t want to—”

“No,” Lash said suddenly. “I want to.” He
reached out and grabbed about twelve different packages, and
dropped them in my basket.

We checked out quickly, Lash again paying. I
decided as we walked to the Hummer that if all went well, I’d pay
for dinner. I’d brought money of my own in my purse.

“Stick yours in the cooler in back,” Lash
hissed. “Bring mine up to the front, please.”

I put my eel and veggies in the back, as he
instructed. There was an empty cooler back there, a giant one. “Is
this for emergency rations?” I asked. “Or tailgate parties?”

Lash gave me a smile. “Something like that,”
he said, opening one of the containers and swallowing a piece.

I watched him try several more pieces,
reassuring myself that he should be okay. There was only rice
besides the fish, and it should be very digestible. There was
seaweed too, but water moccasins were water snakes, weren’t they?
Water was in the name, so they had to be, right? A little seaweed
shouldn’t hurt.

He didn’t like the eggs, or the tuna much,
but he liked the others, especially the salmon and crab. He ate
several packages, taking his time. When he had tried the last one,
he looked at me, and flicked his tongue at me. “I’m okay,” he said.
“If I was going to be sick, it would have happened by now.”

“Good,” I said happily. “But we’ve got to
hurry. Not only am I starving, but if we wait much longer, the
restaurant is going to close—”

“Where it is?” Lash said, starting the
Hummer.

He followed my directions, driving us there
at about seventy miles an hour. Luckily, we saw no police on the
way. Lash parked, carefully stashed the last of the containers of
uneaten food in the cooler, then grabbed my hand and ran for the
front door.

After we were sitting at a table, Lash
immediately began to look over the list of alcohol.

“How can you drink if you can’t eat?” I
asked, regarding him with a humorous smile.

“I don’t know,” Lash hissed, putting down the
list. “But I thank God for it every day.”

I cracked up laughing. After a moment, so did
he.

When our waiter showed up, I ordered some
wine, and he ordered some sake, a Japanese beer. The waiter brought
it to us in moments, then asked us if he could take our order.

“Do you want to share a platter, or get your
own?” I asked Lash. “I usually get just the eel, but I’ll share
some with you, if you like.”

“Do both,” Lash said, his gaze holding mine.
“We’ll order more, if that isn’t enough.”

We ordered the sushi for four, the biggest
sushi platter they offered, and I got a separate order of eel as
well. As the waiter left, Lash abruptly said “Do you and Theo get
sushi often?”

Why was he asking me that?
“No,” I
said honestly. “We never have.”

Lash regarded me curiously, but said nothing.
I was quiet, sipping my wine. Suddenly, I could suddenly think of
nothing to talk about. Maybe I should’ve just gone with him back to
Hayden instead of having dinner out.

Why did I feel so ill at ease?
This
was Lash, and we’d eaten together often, or at least, I’d eaten in
front of him.
What was so different now?
That he hated Theo
was a given…

Lash spoke again, startling me. “Why do you
not like to talk about Theo, if you love him so much?” he hissed.
“You always seem uncomfortable when I bring him up.”

Was he serious?
I couldn’t tell, with
those flat eyes of his. “Because you dislike each other so much. I
hear the hate in your voice when you talk about him.”

“Ah,” he hissed. “You know why, of
course?”

I didn’t actually, not on Lash’s end anyway.
I only knew Theo’s reason. “I heard you broke his neck once,” I
whispered. “That you tried to kill him.”

“Yes,” Lash hissed. “I broke his neck, but I
could have killed him then and I didn’t.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t,” I said awkwardly,
taking a long swallow of my wine to try to calm myself.

“It wasn’t a real fight,” Lash said
contemptuously. “He didn’t challenge me.”

I shivered, remembering his ranking in the
hierarchy of killers: number one. “What happened?”

“It was at one of Danial’s parties, the first
one he threw here, when he became Ruler of New York,” Lash said,
sipping his sake. “Devlin and I came.”

“What did you do?” I said, giving him a look
that made it obvious I knew he had done something.

“Theo was head over heels for a were named
Neoline,” Lash hissed, glancing at me. I nodded to tell him I knew
who she was, and he continued. “He was on break from guarding
Danial, having something to eat and chatting her up. I thought she
was pretty, so I went over to her, and started talking. He didn’t
like that, and told me to get lost.”

I could believe that. “And?”

“I told him to fuck himself, and he went for
me with his blade,” Lash hissed, giving a shrug. “I told him not to
try it, that he was in over his head. He had just started working
for Danial a few years earlier, and he was only maybe twenty-two or
so. To be fair, he was good with a blade for that age, very good.
But I, of course, was much better.”

I stared at him, captivated.

Lash sipped his sake, and continued. “He kept
lunging for me. I kept sidestepping him, laughing. He lost his
temper and attacked me with fists. I grabbed him and broke his
neck. Devlin was pleased, but Danial was violently angry. He threw
us both out.”

I made a face, imagining it. No wonder Theo
hated him. Lash had made an ass out of him, not only in front of
all the big shots of New York, but also in front of his best
friend, and his love interest of the time.

“Danial banned me from any of his later
parties,” Lash hissed with a smile. “That’s why you never saw me
until you did.”

“I’d wondered about that,” I said
politely

“The saddest part was that I didn’t get the
girl, after all that,” Lash hissed with a rueful smile. “Neoline
oathed to Garrett that same night. I always wondered if it wasn’t
to stop me pursuing her.”

I was betting it was, but didn’t say that.
“So that’s it? You have this animosity over a woman who’s dead, who
neither one of you really knew anyway to begin with?”